Smoke and Memories
by basil and dill
Summary: <html><head></head>Alec just moved to Denver and he's a new candidate at Firehouse 17. A chance encounter introduces him to Magnus who has a secret ability that is both a blessing and a curse.</html>
1. Cauldrons and Strangers

**Hi everyone! So this is my first Malec fic, always wanted to do one! The summary's kind of vague just because I have ideas but I don't want to chain myself to something by including it in the summary. :P This was pretty fun to write, so I hope it'll be fun to read! :)**

**Disclaimer: Much as I would love to say otherwise, I own nadda!**

* * *

><p>Alec's POV<p>

"Where is that damn coffee maker," Alec grumbled to himself as he dug through yet _another_ box.

It was 5:30 in the morning, early enough that his brain was groggy, his mind was foggy and all he wanted was a nice hot cup of coffee. It seemed that he found everything _but_ the machine; from expired ketchup packets (that he probably should have thrown out in the move) to an endless array of plastic containers, each missing lids (of course.)

Alec glanced at his watch and cursed under his breath. If he didn't leave soon he was going to miss his bus and he didn't want to be known as the candidate that was late for his first day. In a last ditch effort he rummaged through the nearest box, praying that the universe would take some pity on him and just let him find the dumb machine.

Well it seemed like the universe was still asleep.

What Alec's eyes settled on was something pink at the bottom of the box. This made him curious because Alec knew for certain that this wasn't his; he made it his life's mission not to buy anything pink. He pulled it out of the box.

"What the…" Alec stared slack-jawed at the specimen (because really there was no other word for it).

It was an apron, which was nothing bad, it's practical, but this _thing _was anything but practical. On it there was a picture of a handsome man in a chef's hat bent over a cauldron on the stove. He was winking and the speech bubble above him said, "My cooking is magical." That was okay, not wearable but tolerable. It was the rest of the apron that had Alec raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

It was glittery.

Not a touch of glitter here and there, no, it looked like a unicorn ate a sparkles factory and then threw up all over it. And the amount of ruffles, well it would make a bridesmaid faint from horror.

_This has to be Isabelle's doing._

Alec recalled how Isabelle eyes had pretty much danced with mischief as she packed the box. When he asked she simply smirked and said, "Nothing."

_Nothing my ass…_

Alec shoved the apron back into the box and gave up his hunt for the elusive coffee maker. He grabbed the piece of cold toast out of the toaster, slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and headed towards the door. Another glance at his watch proved that he was cutting it really close. He slipped on his runners and dashed out the door.

Luckily the bus stop wasn't too far away; just around the corner and a little ways up the street. Alec was just breathing a mental sigh of relief that he hadn't missed the bus when he heard the familiar rumblings of a diesel engine from up ahead.

_Please let it be just an early garbage truck, _Alec prayed as he ran to the corner. The tricky thing with this particular bus stop was that the bus turned onto this road from another road that was just beyond the corner. He ran around the corner, his duffel bag thumping against his hip, and saw that the bus had just slowed down at the empty bus stop. Alec waved his hands wildly above his head, he didn't care if he looked like a lunatic hitchhiker with a duffel bag and a piece of toast still in his mouth.

By some miracle the bus driver saw him in the early morning light and slowed to a stop. When Alec finally caught up with the bus, the doors were already open and a silver haired man behind the wheel was looking at him with a slight smile.

"Ach now, that was a wee bit close, now wasn't it?"

The man's kind blue eyes twinkled and his Scottish accent was somehow just right for the misty dawn.

Alec took the piece of toast from his mouth (for he felt like an idiot) and gave the man his own small smile, dipping his head in appreciation. He dug through his bag to find his pass.

"I'm lucky you saw me. Thanks," Alec said as he held up his pass in the hand that wasn't holding his toast.

The driver glanced at the pass and nodded, "Ah well why don' ye go on and take a seat and finish yer breakfast." The man graced Alec with one more kind glance before he closed the door and turned his attention back to the road.

Alec turned to the rest of the bus and realized that he must be one of the first stops because the bus was empty. He sat down at a window seat, shoved his bag onto his lap and ate the rest of his toast as he watched the houses doused in a few rays of sunlight go by. He was still fairly unfamiliar with the neighbourhood, having just finished the move yesterday.

He shifted and settled and it wasn't before long before that the soft rumbles and tumbles of the bus hypnotised his eyelids into drooping, seemingly of their own accord. Alec chastised himself again for not finding the coffee maker the night before.

* * *

><p>His head jerked up when the muscles in his neck completely relaxed. It took him a moment to blink away the confusion and reality had him scrambling to look out the window.<p>

_Oh God, if I missed the stop I'm going to look like a fool — ridiculously late and desperately lost. I'm not even sure where the bus leads, only that it conveniently passes right by the firehouse that is on the outskirts of the city. _

Alec almost sang with relief as he took in the trees, shrubs and gardens. They were still in the country. He relaxed back into his seat and breathed a sigh of relief.

That was when Alec noticed, just from the corner of his eye, that the seat beside him wasn't as empty as it once was.

The person's scarf spilled over onto Alec's seat.

Emerald.

It clashed with the abused blue of the seats. Emerald was regal, otherworldly — magical almost — and it didn't belong among the dust and grime.

He shifted in his thoughts and shifted in his seat and that was when that very special place at the corner of his eye took in more than just the scarf.

That was when he noticed that the person, the man, sitting next to him was turned to him.

Staring at him.

Completely unabashed.

_Oh don't be crazy, why would he be looking at me for? He's probably looking out the window. That or I have crumbs all over my face. _

Alec rubbed at his mouth and as he did so he heard a breath of laughter from beside him.

Slightly irritated, Alec turned his head towards the man but whatever he was about to say flew out of his mind and joined the mist.

Alec's gaze ran down the man's face and tripped when it landed on his eyes. The man had eyes like he'd never seen before; swirls of green and light brown mixed together, with flakes of gold sprinkled here and there. They were arresting.

Alec was vaguely aware that the corners of the man's mouth were slowly turning up.

"You know, I heard it's rude to stare."

The man's voice brought him out of his reverie and Alec tore his eyes away from the man's eyes, but not from his face. He could already feel the embarrassed flush spreading up from his neck.

"I uhh, I was ahhh," flustered, he tried to think of an excuse, one that would validate why he was staring at the man for Lord only knows how long. What was it about this man that made him feel frazzled, like he had gotten a small electric shock.

_Oh for crap's sake, stop acting like a teenage school girl. I am a grown man and I can think of a grown man reason for staring at the stranger beside me. _

Alec felt like groaning.

The man was still watching him, amusement etched all over his face, challenging Alec to come up with an impossible excuse. The elegant emerald scarf shouldn't have coupled well with his hair that stuck up but somehow they just complemented each other.

"I was just um, zoned out a bit," Alec faked a yawn, "just a little tiered."

By the way the man's eyes sparkled Alec knew he wasn't buying any of it.

Alec turned his head to face the front once more and prayed that his stop would be soon. Embarrassment sat between Alec and the man and grinned wickedly over at Alec.

'You drool, darling," the man drawled out, still looking at Alec.

Alec sputtered and the man laughed under his breath. He looked past Alec, out the window.

"Wouldn't want to miss your stop," the man jerked his chin at the window.

Alec looked out the window and sure enough, there was the firehouse just a couple meters in from the road. He quickly pushed the button to request the stop.

_Wait, how did he know?_

Alec turned to the man and he must have seen the question on Alec's face because he just rolled his eyes in response.

"Wild guess," he said while he stared pointedly at the Firehousehouse 17 emblem on his shirt.

The bus was slowing and Alec wondered how he was going to get out. Should he try and bend his way around the man, or was he going to move?

_With my luck the bus will probably come to an abrupt stop just as I'm skirting around this guy and I'll end up on his lap. _

The man might have tuned into his train of thought because he stood up and moved to stand in the aisle, giving Alec a clear path. The bus had almost stopped so Alec grabbed his bag and stood up. He moved out into the aisle and chanced a glance at the man, who was smiling at him as though he held the world's greatest secret.

"Until tomorrow then." He just smiled at Alec's horrified look.

Alec walked to the front of the bus and waited for the doors to open.

He thanked the bus driver, who looked at him and smiled.

"Be sure ye enjoy the nice weather we're havin, won't last long."

Alec smiled in agreement. The doors swished open and just before he stepped off, he took one more look back and found the man still standing, the all-knowing smile still plastered on his face.

_It's been a while since I've managed to so acutely embarrass myself. God I hope I never have to see this man again._

But every atom in his body laughed at the lie.

* * *

><p><strong>So, what did you think? I'm thinking the next chapter will be from Magnus's POV. I'll try and update every week but it'll probably be every weekish...emphasis on the 'ish.' :P I'd love to hear from you so please review if you have a moment! :D<strong>


	2. Blushes and Feels

**Hi you guys! First of all, thank you so much for reading, following and reviewing. It's always great to hear some feedback! So as promised, this chapter's from Magnus's POV and we get to learn a little more about what he does. **

**Oh, I meant to say this at the beginning of the first chapter but I forgot. :P For any Scottish people who are reading this, you're probably cringing to yourself every time Steven opens his mouth. In my defense I tried to use one of the sites that adds Scottish accents to texts but I came out with pretty fuuuunky things. Like 'The weather is beautiful outside' translated into '****Th' weaither is bonnie ootwith.'**

**Yeaaaaah, it had me scratching my head in confusion so I figured for the 95.2% of us that are reading this and not Scottish I would just keep it simple (and understandable, hehee).**

* * *

><p>Magnus POV<p>

"It's too early to be alive," Magnus muttered to his reflection in the glass of the bus terminal while he flattened out the crinkles in his emerald scarf. Even his hair lacked the energy to stick up the way it usually did. Magnus sighed and turned away from the glass. Even though he complained regularly about the fact that he had to wake up at 5 am for his job, he didn't mind— that much. Starting work earlier meant that he got to go home earlier too. It was just getting out of bed that was always the hardest.

_What cruel law of physics makes the bed 10 times more comfortable just as the alarm goes off? _Magnus always wondered that fact.

Right on time, as it always was, the bus rolled around the corner and headed towards Magnus. The bus stopped and when the doors opened he was greeted by Steven's familiar cheerful smile. A sense of peaceful happiness washed over Magnus.

_My range must be increasing for Steven. I always had to stand beside him to get a feel. _

"Good mornin' ta ya, Magnus," Steven lilted out in his dancing Scottish accent that Magnus found so comforting. Steven had been his bus driver every day since he'd started the job at the hospital 7 months ago. He had yet to see him in a bad mood.

"Good morning to you too, Steven, though it might be a little early to deem 'good,'" Magnus said with a yawn as he swiped his pass.

Steven chuckled quietly to himself, "I think our new addition might be thinkin' along the same lines," he nodded toward the only other person on the bus.

Magnus looked back and saw the man. He was sitting beside the window and his head was bent forward in sleep, his black hair covering most of his face.

"That can't be comfortable," Magnus mused aloud.

"Aye, that it can't. Here's hopin' he finds himself a nice cuppa tea." Steven shut the doors.

"Pfft," Magnus waved his hand in the air," you're better than any exotic tea."

Magnus felt a spike of joy. Steven laughed. "Ya sure know how ta make an ol' man happy."

"Old man," Magnus scoffed as he walked past Steven to take a seat. The bus was empty, he could sit anywhere he wanted, but he had his spot.

Problem was the man was sitting in it.

_The entire bus is empty, fairly sure you can survive sitting in another seat for one day, _Magnus sarcastically thought to himself as he tried to ignore the unexplainable compulsion to sit beside the raven-haired man.

He was about to pass by the seat, he really was, but at the last moment he swung himself around and sat down beside the man. He sat down as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake the stranger.

He could have sworn he saw Steven shoot a satisfied smile into the bus's rear-view mirror.

_Just perfect, all I need now is Steven to start playing cupid._

He turned his head slightly to the window, and then fully when he realized there wasn't anyone on the bus to judge him for looking.

From the side, he was able to see smooth skin, thick eyelashes and high cheekbones. In sleep, the man's face was relaxed and held a gentleness that tugged at something in Magnus. The man's default swam around Magnus.

That's what he called the default feel. The default was the base feel that every person had but it was the hardest to pick out because it was constantly covered by the emotions that the person was feeling at any given moment. The only time the default shone bright was when a person was in a deep, dreamless sleep.

It was a very important part of a person, it was almost like the soul's brother. Shaped by past experiences, it was the compilation of emotions that a person always felt, unaware.

From the man's default Magnus picked out strands of honesty, vitality and kindness. What caught Magnus's attention was an underlying emotion that braided through all the others, such poignant sadness that it had Magnus feeling like an intruder.

He felt ashamed for having the ability to know something so personal without even having talked with the person. It wasn't as though he _wanted _to walk around all the time and know what everyone was feeling. Most times he could tune it out, like the buzz of noise at the mall, but when there was only a limited number of people in his environment it was impossible.

Magnus tried to distract himself by focusing on what he could see about the man. Sometimes when he directed his attention to one sense his ability would fade to the background.

He noticed the bag that sat on the man's lap. He tried to piece together where this man could possibly be heading this early in the morning when he saw the crest on his shirt and it all made sense.

_Huh, he's a fireman. _The part of his brain that was responsible for gushing and that universal warm tingly feeling grinned widely. The rational part of his brain thumped the other part upside the head.

At that moment the bus went over a bump and the man's head rolled forward completely before snapping up.

Magnus was assaulted by a wave of panic from the man when he looked out the window; it was quickly replaced by ease when the stranger relaxed.

Magnus's breath stuttered when the man looked forward and he got a look at his eyes. They were blue like the deepest part of the Mediterranean, soft like a blanket of clouds and the contrast with his black hair was startling. He knew he was staring, and by the way the man fidgeted Magnus knew the man noticed.

The man dragged a hand across his mouth his eyes still bleary from sleep.

_I wouldn't mind waking up every morning to his sleepy blue eyes._

Magnus laughed at the irrationality of the thought and ventured a guess at which side of his brain had won. The laugh seemed to provoke something in the man because the next moment those blue eyes were trained on him with an accusing look.

When they locked gazes the man's eyes widened.

* * *

><p>All throughout his shift thoughts of the man kept flickering across his mind. He thought of the blue eyes on his way to a consult; the way they had grew wide when he had looked at Magnus, as if surprised at his own reaction.<p>

On his lunch break, he remembered the endearing blush that had spilt down the bridge of the stranger's nose and spread over his cheeks when he had been caught staring.

"What's going on with you, Magnus," Tessa asked when they were in their office and she caught Magnus smiling to himself.

Tessa was the other psychiatrist working in the hospital. Well technically she was the only full psychiatrist since Magnus was just a resident, but Tessa trusted Magnus and gave him loose reigns. She was always impressed by the way he could connect to the patients, the way he could draw out the truth and yet still make them feel comfortable.

_Ha, if only she knew…_

His ability made him a pretty good psychiatrist, but it became difficult sometimes to not address things he shouldn't know.

Magnus blinked and saw Tessa looking at him with a slight smile from across the room, behind her own desk.

He shook his head slowly. "I don't know," he replied truthfully, exhaling and smiling dumbfounded at Tessa.

All he knew was that his early morning commute just got way more exciting.

* * *

><p><strong>So it's starting off a little slow but I promise there's some action coming up! I'm thinking from now on I'm just going to include both POVs in each chapter so we simultaneously know what the other is thinking. <strong>

**I'd love to hear from you guys and reviews make my day (hint, hint) :)**

**See y'all next week!**


	3. Broken Glass and Broken Hearts

**Hey guys! So you can thank the Thanksgiving holiday for the quick update :P This chapter's a bit longer than the others and I thought about separating it into two but then I thought nahhhh. As promised there's action in this one and we also get introduced to some new characters (but not _new _new because we've met them before :D)**

**Thanks for all those who've reviewed, followed and favorited. You guys are awesome! And if you haven't, well I still think you're awesome just for reading! :)**

**Disclaimer: I forgot to put this into the last chapter but I just figure it's a given that I don't have the honor of owning any of these wonderful characters :P**

* * *

><p>Alec stepped into the firehouse and breathed it all in: the vitality, the urgency.<p>

The family.

He loved being a firefighter, couldn't imagine being anything else; however the firehouse he had served at back in New York hadn't left him with glowing reviews.

He took in the ready trucks with their doors open and boots circling them; all ready for the next emergency. It already stirred his blood and the last wisps of grogginess were replaced with an equal mix of excitement and nervousness.

_Please let it not be like the other firehouse_, Alec prayed as he repositioned the strap of his bag and went in search of the others.

When he opened the door to the lounge he found it alive and animated. Some firefighters were sitting at the table talking over coffee and reading the morning paper, others were standing in a group ad laughing over something.

When the door opened they looked over.

"Hey, look it's our new candidate," one of the firefighters shouted with a grin.

He made his way over to Alec and pushed his hand out, "I'm Bat, nice to have you on board," he said while they shook hands.

Alec smiled back, "I'm Alec."

Introductions were made and hands were shook. A group of them were just about to give him a tour of the firehouse and show him his locker when a man in a different uniform stepped in.

_The chief._

The chief scanned the room and his gaze stopped on Alec. "Can I have a word candidate."

It wasn't a question.

"Wow," whispered the firefighter beside Alec whom he remembered was Jace, "you've been here five minutes and you're already being summoned to the principal's office." Alec looked over at Jace and saw the teasing light in his eyes.

Alec followed the chief into his office. The chief closed the door after Alec which made Alec swallow back his nerves. In his experience closed doors never meant anything good.

The chief went behind his desk and reached out his hand to Alec. "I'm Chief Garroway."

"It's good to have you here candidate," he said after Alec introduced himself. He took a seat behind his desk and motioned at the chair in front of his desk. Alec sat down.

"So I hear that you served at Stationhouse 42 back in New York before you moved here?"

Alec nodded. "Yes chief." Alec squirmed in his seat, dreading the awkward conversation to come.

Garroway eyed his discomfort and looked steadily at Alec.

"I understand Chief Morgenstern took too much of an _interest_ in your personal life." He paused and Alec was trying to come up with an appropriate reply.

Before Alec could say something the chief continued, "Let me tell you something, candidate. I don't care if you date armadillos with tusks and giant purple wings, if you're a good firefighter then you're one of us."

Alec was speechless.

"Thank you chief," Alec finally managed to sputter out when he regained his wits.

The chief shook his head. "You shouldn't have to be thanking me for this. I'm sorry that your first experience was serving under such a bigoted, self-righteous chief."

There was a knock at the door and a man let himself in. Alec recognized the man as one of the firefighters from the lounge but they hadn't gotten a chance for introductions.

"Alec," the chief said, "this is Lieutenant Jordan and he's the leader of your squad."

Alec took in Jordan's muscular build and didn't doubt for a second that he could probably lift a small car by himself.

"So you're our rookie then? Well welcome to your second home. I hope you know how to cook," he rubbed his middle, "because I'm pretty sure my stomach is still trying to identify the concoction that Bat fed us yesterday."

Alec laughed and opened his mouth to reply when there were two sharp alarm beeps over the system. They went still.

_Ambulance 24, Truck 19, multivehicle collision, _the voice said over the system.

Jordan pulled lightly on Alec's jacket and the three of them hurriedly made their way to the truck hall. The squad was there pulling on their gear.

Jordan handed Alec a pair, "Time to see what you can do, rookie."

* * *

><p>When they arrived on scene they found a car pinned between the truck that had struck it and the rocky cliff that bordered the road. The car was in bad shape. There was a man with blood trickling down his face that was frantically running around the car.<p>

_Must be the truck driver._

Jordan yelled out orders while everyone jumped out of the truck.

The lieutenant motioned for Alec to come with him as they jogged towards the car.

"You stick with me and keep your head. We work as a team here. Have you ever done an extraction before," he looked at Alec. Alec nodded.

"Good."

When they got closer to the accident the man came running toward them.

"Oh thank God," he desperately reached out to Jordan, "my tire…lost control…oh please help them."

"It's okay sir," he handed the man over to another firefighter, "Maia is going to take you to get checked out."

Maia ushered the man away from the accident.

They jogged over to the car. It wasn't good. The two sides of the car were squished together unnaturally and the occupants were pinned from both sides. The unconscious driver was bleeding from the neck and the woman in the passenger seat was cradling her wrist that was bent at an odd angle.

'My little boy, my baby! You need to help our little boy," she cried hysterically. Jordan headed toward the front of the car.

"You check the back,' he told Alec.

Alec had to scramble onto the hood of the truck to be able to see into the back. There was no one on the seats but a flash of colour caught his eye. Through the cracked glass he saw a little boy unconscious on the floor of the car.

"I've got a boy here," he yelled at Jordan.

"Bat, Jace, we need to tow this truck out of here," Jordan yelled.

Bat hooked one end of a chain to the front of the fire truck and jogged towards them with the other end.

Jordan turned towards the woman passenger. "We found your son, just hold on a little longer and we'll have you all out of there soon," he reassured her.

Jordan joined Bat at the front of the truck to help him attach it to a solid piece of the truck.

Alec scrambled off the hood of the truck and landed at the rear of the car. He was about to head towards the front when he smelt something. He sniffed the air and then got down on the ground, hoping that his suspicion was wrong. He pulled himself under the front of the truck and peered under the car, behind the rear wheel.

The gas tank was punctured and the gas was slowly leaking out and pooling under the car.

"You can't tow the truck," Alec shouted out as he righted himself. He went to the front of the car and told Jordan and Bat what he found. Just the tiniest spark from a piece of metal dragging on the road could send the car and the passengers up in flames.

Jordan digested this.

"Okay, we're going to get them out through the front and rear windshields. Bat and Maia get the driver and the woman, Alec and I will take the boy." He pressed a button on his radio and spoke into it, "Jace and Micah, you two need to douse the car. We have a gas leak here."

"Roger Lieutenant," Micah's crackling voice came through.

The two groups set to work breaking the glass as the water rained down on them.

* * *

><p>Magnus unlocked his front door, slipped his shoes off, dumped his bag and keys on the kitchen counter and collapsed on the couch. With his head back, eyes closed and feet up he let out the tension he'd been holding for hours.<p>

His afternoon had gone downhill fast.

After lunch he was called to the emergency room for a consult. When he got there the attending doctor had showed him to the patient, explaining along the way.

"She was in a car accident with her parents. Both parents died, one from a broken neck the other from head trauma. It's a miracle she's still alive," the doctor said.

They stopped in front of a closed door.

The doctor looked at Magnus. "She was unconscious when they brought her in so she doesn't know about her parents yet."

Magnus's heart sank.

_The poor girl. _

Magnus knew the pain of losing both his parents. He took a deep breath and steeled himself.

"What's her name," Magnus asked.

"Emma. Emma Carstairs."

They walked into the room. The girl was lying on the bed; her arm bandaged and bruises all over. Magnus guessed her to be 17. When she saw them come in she tried to get up but stopped, clutching her ribs.

The pain hit Magnus first. But worry, anxiety and confusion weren't far behind.

"Where are my parents," she asked the doctor and eyed Magnus wearily.

The doctor went to stand beside her bed.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," he said gently.

Dread throbbed through the room.

"We tried everything we could but we weren't able to save your parents."

'No," Emma breathed out. She shook her head slowly from side to side, unable or just unwilling to comprehend.

"I'm so sorry," the doctor said softly.

Physically she shut down. She stared forward unseeingly at the white hospital wall.

The raw emotions hit Magnus like a boulder, making his breath catch. Anger at the person who had hit them, at the doctors, at the world. So much pain that Magnus struggled to focus on something else, _anything _else, to keep his composure.

_How is she keeping such an impassive face? _

The doctor shifted. "This is Dr. Bane," he said looking at Magnus. "He can listen to you if you want to talk."

With a glance at Magnus, the doctor quietly left the room.

Magnus approached Emma and sat down in the chair that was sitting beside her bed.

She looked blankly at him. The only windows that showed her turmoil were her eyes.

_So much pain for one so young._

"I'm just going to sit here for a little while," Magnus said gently. "You don't need to talk if you don't want to."

Emma turned her head and continued looking at the wall.

Magnus just sat there, being assaulted by the girl's emotions.

* * *

><p>Hours passed in silence.<p>

Magnus wondered if he should try and engage the girl to talk when an out of breath boy showed up at the door.

"Oh God, Emma," he whispered as he ran to her bed.

The boy brought relief and worry into the room.

He sat down on the side of her bed and grabbed her hand. He looked to be the same age as Emma.

"Julian," Emma murmured her bottom lip trembling and she bit it furiously.

"I know,' the boy said smoothing some hair back from her face.

Magnus looked at their intertwined hands and saw that Emma was squeezing Julian's hand so hard her hand was white. Julian didn't flinch, he just absorbed her hurt.

Magnus could feel the deep bond that connected the two and as a tear snaked down Emma cheek he knew that right now the boy could do more help than he ever could. He stood up and was about to leave when a nurse came in and looked at Julian.

"I'm afraid visiting hours are over. You can come back tomorrow."

Julian stood up to protest but Magnus placed a hand on his shoulder.

Magnus looked at the nurse, "He's family."

The nurse looked between the boy and the girl and if she didn't believe it she didn't say anything. Her eyes softened as she took in the girl. She gave Magnus a nod of understanding and left.

"Thank you," the boy said to Magnus as he sat down. Magnus gave his shoulder a light squeeze and left the room.

He glanced at his watch and found his shift had ended over two hours ago. As he collected his things from the office he wondered why he did this to himself. He had figured out his ability when he was young, he could have picked a job as a mechanic or something.

Magnus sighed. He knew he would never stop being a psychiatrist. His ability made him able to help others in ways that no one else ever could.

Even if it meant that he went home every day feeling like his insides had been beat up.

* * *

><p><strong>Well there we go. I had a lot of fun finding new roles for the characters. It was such a lightbulb moment when I was trying to think of who the chief should be and I thought of Luke. He'd make such good chief to serve under, always looking out for his pack. If you have any ideas feel free to PM me, I'd love to hear from you. Oh and spoiler for next chapter: there will be some Malec moments! :-)<strong>

**Hope you guys have a good week, wherever in the world you might be! **


	4. Fairies and Concrete

**Hi! Sorry it took me a little longer than usual to update, midterms decided to have a kicking contest with my brain. :P To make up for it this chapter's on the longish side again plus it has Magnus/Alec bits as hinted in the previous chapter. Hope you guys like this one! **

**Oh, I want to thank ChocolateWriter for giving me some pointers when it came to Steven's accent. I hope it's a little more convincing now :D**

**Disclaimer: Ownage: Clare=100%, me=0%**

* * *

><p><em>The fire crackled and popped with force, flexing its muscles as it moved through the house. Standing at the top of the stairs, coughing with stinging, streaming eyes, Alec watched the shadows of the fire casting eerie figures on the wall. It felt like a dream but he knew it wasn't. <em>

_The smoke was just too thick. _

_The sounds were just too real._

_And his heart pounded way too fast._

_He heard shuffling and gagging from behind him and when turned he saw Izzy silhouetted in the smoke as she came closer, arms out-stretched searching for any obstacles in the dark night._

_She grabbed Alec and used him to keep herself upright as another wave of coughing passed through her shaking form. _

_She caught his shocked eyes with her own frantic ones. "He's not in his room. I can't find him." Her grip on his shoulders tightened as she said it out loud. _

_Alec's stomach twisted and tugged and pulled and he was pretty sure he was going to lose his dinner. It was all too much. The house, Izzy, Max… _

_They looked at each other and the panic bounced back and forth between them, gaining speed._

_The sound of something exploding downstairs brought him back into focus and propelled him into action. He gripped Izzy's arms and pushed her away, towards their parent's bedroom._

"_You need to get out of here. Use the deck that's attached to the room."_

_Even in the haze Alec could see Izzy's face tighten and he knew his sister well to know that she was going to argue._

"_Izzy, you need to get help. We need help."_

"_What about—"_

"_I'll find him."_

_She hesitated and Alec was worried that she wouldn't go but finally she nodded and stumbled her way into the smoke towards the room._

_Alec turned back to the stairs as he heard a moan coming from the fiery fog. _

Alec awoke and sat up, gasping. He tried to calm his heart, his breath and the fear that was coursing through him. The dream always left him shaking, unable to fall asleep again. He flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his room barely illuminated by the faint moonlight.

He wasn't sure what triggered the dream. The rescue had been a success yesterday; they had gotten all three of them out fast after they had set to work. The trickiest part was getting the man out. He had a piece of the glass from the side window imbedded in his neck and was unconscious. They had to get him out the windshield without moving him too much because they weren't sure if the glass was blocking an artery, preventing him from bleeding out.

Throughout the flurry of activity he had noticed how well the team worked together. They all trusted and believed in each other's abilities almost as if they had been working together for decades, not months. The unspoken messages that passed between them as they worked left Alec looking at them in admiration, sparking a desire to be part of something so smooth.

_It must have been the boy, though he looked nothing like –._

Alec looked at his alarm and sighed when he registered the time. It was only 4:12, too early to get ready for work but the dream always left him with a restless energy. With a huff, he pulled himself out of bed and blinked against the light of the lamp he turned on. He surveyed his room and set to work unpacking one of the many boxes that cluttered the floor of his room.

* * *

><p>The doors of the bus swung open and the driver's grin greeted Alec. He was happily surprised that it was the same driver as yesterday. He smiled back slightly.<p>

"Good morning."

"Nae runnin' this morn?" The driver shot him a cheeky grin as he closed the doors. Alec grabbed the hand bar behind the driver's seat as the bus started moving and breathed out a laugh.

"No, not today. I got tired of living on the edge," he teased back. There was something about the driver that made him so comfortable to talk to, something that surprised even Alec himself.

"Me manners seem ta hae disappeared in me auld age." He slowed at a vacant stop and scanned the surrounding area to make sure there were no stragglers. "Me name's Steven." He sped up, satisfied that he wasn't leaving anyone behind.

"I'm Alexander, but most people just call me Alec."

"Well it's wonderful ta meet ye, Alec. I hae a feelin' we'll be seein' more of each other."

"Do you work this route most mornings?"

Steven let out a deep chuckle. "Aye, ye could say that. I've been doin' this route for close ta fifteen years."

Alec's eyes widened. "Wow. Doesn't it get boring, driving down the same streets day after day?

"Nae," he smiled fondly, "I get ta watch the bonnie sunrise ev'ry morn and talk with so many interestin' people. It cannae get better."

Alec was still smiling to himself at Steven's wisdom when he sat down in the same seat as yesterday. As the bus slowed, approaching a stop, he found himself peering through the window. He mentally laughed at himself, at his own ridiculousness. By the third time he caught himself scanning a stop, looking for gold, he grew frustrated and tore his eyes away from the window.

He had always prided himself in being a rational person and rational people don't hope to see a stranger they had exchanged only a couple words with. He had learned his lesson the hard way; an easy grin and smooth charm had dashed into his life once and it had fractured his world. Never again, he had sworn to himself, never again was he going to let anyone make him feel like that.

_Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…_

And yet even as the thought was fresh in his mind his eyes registered the new passenger's raised hair and his traitorous heart gave a lurch.

* * *

><p>When Magnus stepped onto the bus he was taken aback by the ball of relief, followed quickly by irritation that attacked him. He looked for the source and was pleasantly surprised that it was the man from yesterday. He could already feel his whole demeanor perk up.<p>

_But why the irritation? He can't still be frustrated about yesterday; surely he knows I was only teasing. He was such an easy target and quite frankly I'd say anything to see that blush again._

After a few words with Steven, Magnus walked down the aisle and stopped, standing in the aisle beside the man. The man pointedly stared out the window and ignored him and Magnus had to smile because the man was looking at his reflection. When he noticed that they were making eye contact via Magnus's reflection the man blinked and looked away except there was nowhere else to look; he was boxed in by the two versions of Magnus.

"You're sitting in my seat."

The man slowly turned his head and looked at Magnus, as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. He deliberately scanned the empty bus and then raised his eyebrows at Magnus in disbelief.

"You're joking, right? Look, I'm pretty sure you can find another one."

Magnus smiled that smile and shook his head slightly, "But I like this one."

The black haired man huffed in exasperation, grabbed his bag and stood up.

Magnus sat down in the seat beside the man, blocking the exit. The man stared down at him perturbed, clearly not impressed with his antics.

Magnus let out a melodramatic sigh. "Well I guess I could be persuaded to give up my seat." He bounced a little in his seat. "I quite like the feel of this one," he looked at the man, "plus the view is exceptional."

His insides sang with delight when the blush appeared and darkened.

"I meant I could see out the front windshield, gee, what did you think I meant?" Magnus smiled coyly.

The man sputtered a little and then glared at Magnus before turning to look out the window again.

"I'm Magnus by the way. Seeing as how we're going to be bus-buddies I think introductions are in order. I haven't had a bus-buddy since elementary school," he mused. "Ragnor and I would play this game where we would sit backwards and every time the bus slowed or made a stop we would slide further and further into the space between the edge of our seat and the back of the seat in front of us. It was fun until the goof got himself stuck and started crying. It took three of us pulling on various arms and legs to get him out; he wasn't the slimmest kid you see." Magnus laughed at the remembered image.

He was fighting it, but in the window Magnus could see the corners of the man's mouth tugging upwards.

The man turned his head and looked at Magnus. Though his mouth was no longer set in a hard line his eyes were guarded. In the mix of feels, Magnus picked out weariness, suspicion and excitement.

_So many contradictory emotions, what has him so apprehensive? _

"I'm Alec."

"Alec. Is that short for something?"

"Alexander."

"Well isn't that _great_." Magnus's eyebrows waggled up and down as he said 'great.'

"Ha ha," Alec said sarcastically even while his eyes gained some mirth, "never heard that one before."

After a moment Magnus asked, "So you're a firefighter?"

Alec nodded.

"Lots of shift work then. What's your schedule?"

Alec eyed Magnus distrustfully.

Magnus held up his hands in a 'don't shoot me' way. "Hey I just want to know when my seat's going to be out of commission."

Alec digested the validity of the statement. "I'm on a 4 days on 3 days off rotation."

Magnus nodded. His schedule had been similar when he had first started out at the hospital.

"Come to think of it, what do you do that requires you to be on a bus at 5:30 in the morning?"

"I work in a hospital. I'm a psychiatrist."

Alec looked at him dubiously.

Magnus sighed. He got this all the time. "I graduated a year early."

"That's pretty impressive. Your parents must be proud," he added teasingly.

Magnus looked forward and his grin faltered. "I would like to think so. They died when I was young."

An acute blast of guilt hit him. "I'm so sorry that I—if I'd have known I wouldn't have—I'm sorry."

Magnus looked at Alec who was studying his hands in his lap. Shame and sympathy oozed off of him.

_Such an odd combination, _Magnus thought for not the first time that night. He bumped his shoulder against Alec who jumped at the sudden contact.

"It's okay, you didn't know."

A few minutes trickled by in comfortable silence only interrupted by the gurgling of the bus and the squeaks of the brakes. Magnus found himself cursing the fact that Alec's stop was coming up soon. He would have gladly stayed on the bus all day and made random conversation, or sat peacefully in silence beside this boy. The ease at which Alec —this stranger he's only known for a day– managed to invade his thoughts frightened him; but truth be told the giddy exhilaration was worth it.

When the bus stopped in front of the firehouse he stood up and let Alec out.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," he said while smiling his mega-watt smile. "Be safe," he added softly.

Alec shot him a small smile that didn't reach his troubled eyes as he turned to walk to the front of the bus.

_One day I'm going to make his face light up with unrestrained laughter; and the sadness he tries so hard to hide will be tempered by gossamer touches and fairy kisses._

* * *

><p>Alec purposefully didn't look back as he got off the bus. Once off, he took a deep breath as the bus pulled away and he replaced the bricks that Magnus had been able to pull free from his defenses. He painted over them with reinforcing concrete because he knew he was in trouble.<p>

_This man has the ability to plant himself deep and then leave, trailing bricks like breadcrumbs from a fairytale._

And that thought scared the crap out of him.

* * *

><p><strong>I know, I know, not too many squeal-worthy Malec scenes but I figure their relationship is going to gradually build up, seeing as Alec has some demons he needs to deal with. I'd love to hear from you if you have questions or ideas. Thanks to all those who've been reading, reviewing, following and favoriting. Y'all are awesome! I absolutely love getting reviews from you guys so if you have a moment I'd love to hear from you! :)<strong>

**See you guys back here soon. Have a good week! :))**


	5. Barbeque Sauce and Soot

**Ahhhh! You guys are every kind of fantastic! Thanks so much for all the feedback on the last chapter! It took me a little while to write this one out just because school is hogging a lot of my time. Don't you just wish you could press pause and get caught up on writing and all those wonderful books that are just screaming your name? :P So I figured with this chapter I'd start to branch out Alec's relationships so he's not just talking to Steven, Magnus and the cooking apron all the time. Mind you, if I were Alec and I'd be stuck in a world where I could only speak with Magnus, I don't think I'd be complaining too dang hard. :P **

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely fan-freaking nothing.**

* * *

><p>The following weeks passed quickly for Alec as his life developed somewhat of a routine. He was happy, happier than he had been in a long time and work was a big part of that. When he woke up in the mornings he was actually excited to get to work. This firehouse was just so much better than the one he had worked at in New York that the two experiences weren't even comparable. Here, they didn't treat him like some dumb rookie, they treated him as an equal, as a friend. Sure, he'd been stuck on washroom duty for the past couple weeks but that was like a rite of passage.<p>

It helped that he worked with the same truck every shift, so he worked with the same people. Generally, he'd always been bad with making conversation with strangers. What are you supposed to talk about with a stranger if you have no idea what they like? But with this truck, even though they were strangers, they weren't at the same time. They put their lives in each other's hands and that developed a link that very few people experience. They were family, maybe not through blood but through spirit.

Jace especially had become a close friend. Alec couldn't exactly pinpoint _how_ it happened. Jace was confident, loud and witty; in short, his exact opposite. Somehow it worked.

Alec thought back to particularly tough shift. It was an old abandoned building fire, nobody was supposed to be in there yet they split up and checked the rooms.

Jace and him were checking the rooms in the basement and the building was beginning to groan and rumble. Their radio crackled and the chief spoke.

"Everyone out now. The fire's escalated and the structure's unsafe."

They started to turn around and Alec yelled out once more, "Fire department, call out."

He heard a whimper.

_Alec turned back to the stairs as he heard a moan coming from the fiery fog._

He snapped out of the memory and looked at Jace. By the look on Jace's face he knew he hadn't imagined the sound. He hurried towards the sound, as fast as he could in his heavy equipment.

"Fire department, call out," Alec yelled as he went farther into the basement. He heard shuffling and Jace was beside him also yelling out.

They heard a shout coming from the second last room. Their radios came to life.

"Jace, Alec get out now," the chief boomed. They both ignored it.

"Go," Alec said to Jace, "you can leave, you don't need to come with me."

"Now where's the fun in that? And who do you think is going to save your sorry ass?"

They stepped into the room and they squinted through the smoke, trying to locate the person. A coughing sob came from below a bookcase that had fallen. Jace squatted beside Alec and lifted the bookcase enough for Alec to crouch down and locate the person. It was a girl, maybe 6 years old. She was pinned on her front but when the weight lifted off her she raised her head and saw Alec. Alec was about to tell her not to move when the girl wobbled to her knees and crawled out.

She sprang at Alec, wrapped her tiny arms around his neck, her small legs around his waist and cried into his chest. He wrapped his arms around the shaking girl, curved his body around her and got to his feet, just as Jace let the bookcase crash to the ground.

"ALEC, JACE, THIS IS AN ORDER!"

They didn't take the time to reply. They hurried out of the room, skirted the pipes that were falling and passed support beams that were creaking from strain. They went up the stairs as fast as they could and pushed their way outside.

Alec ripped off his mask with a hand that wasn't holding onto the girl and gulped down the fresh air. The girl was still holding on to him, squeezing him with considerable force for someone so small.

The others saw them and their stance visibly relaxed. He saw Jordan push out a big breath and close his eyes for a beat too long.

As he walked towards the ambulance he rubbed the girl's back lightly. "You're okay now. These nice people are going to make sure you didn't get hurt." Alec tried to pass the girl over to the paramedics but she wouldn't let go. She looked up at Alec with terrified eyes and Alec could see the trails her tears had left on her sooty face.

_What was she doing in there by herself?_

Alec met the girl's eyes and held them, let her see his sincerity. "They're going to take good care of you and make sure you find your family." He bent over and sat her down on the stretcher. She allowed herself to be placed on the stretcher but her small hand snaked out and grabbed Alec hand.

"_Izzy, you need to get help. We need help."_

"_What about—"_

"_I'll find him."_

He blinked. The paramedic was just putting an oxygen mask on the girl and she took out her stethoscope to listen to her lungs. Alec squeezed the girls hand reassuringly. He looked around and saw that his truck was spraying down the building and slowly starting to regain control of the fire. It wasn't a high alarm fire; it was just tricky because the building was old and weak to begin with. He spotted Jace sitting on the edge of the fire truck spraying water all over his face.

_God, some water would be nice._

In the midst of all of them he saw Garroway detangle himself from the others and stride purposefully towards him. Jace hopped down and started walking over. The chief passed by the two of them without stopping.

"A word."

Jace and Alec looked at each other knowingly. Alec stooped down a little until he was eye level with the girl.

"I'm just going to go over there for a little bit." He pointed to where the chief was standing. "I'll be right back." The girl nodded slowly and let go of his hand reluctantly.

The two of them started walking over and stopped in front of the chief.

"Well, I'm guessing this isn't a good time to ask for a raise?" Jace's cheeky grin didn't fade at the chief's pointed look.

The chief looked at both of them and took his time in speaking. Alec was about to squirm out of his gear if the chief wasn't going to say something soon.

"Whose idea was it to disobey a direct order?"

Before Alec could open his mouth to say something Jace said, "It was ours."

Alec looked questioningly over at Jace and then back at the chief who was watching Alec.

"It was my idea, chief."

The chief nodded, he already knew somehow.

"Tell me what happened in there."

Alec told him about hearing a sound, how they had doubled back and found her under the bookcase.

The chief digested this while looking at Alec speculatively.

"What would have happened if the sound had turned into nothing? You didn't respond on your radios, we didn't know what was going on. Is there something wrong with them? With _both _of them?" The chief looked at them, daring them to come up with an excuse.

Alec knew he was right. But he had been scared that the chief was going to tell them to get out. He couldn't have. Wouldn't have.

"_What about—"_

"_I'll find him."_

"_I'll find him."_

"_I'll find him."_

He gave himself a mental shake and found himself being watched by the chief.

"The suits don't turn make us invincible," he said, not uncaringly. "You do what you can and get out." He turned to walk back to the others but before he did he added, "Today was a good day." They watched him join the others.

Jace slapped his shoulder and passed him the half empty water bottle he'd been holding. "Ah, don't mind him." Alec gulped down the water.

"Everyone knows he would have done the same, no questions asked. He just wants to make sure his new candidate doesn't go and get himself killed. Don't know what he was worried about; it wasn't like I was going to let you turn into a human shish kabob." He shot him a sly grin. "We ran out of barbecue sauce back at the firehouse yesterday."

Alec snorted as he brought the bottle down from his lips. "Thank God for Bat and his habit of drowning everything in barbeque sauce then."

Jace laughed as they walked back to the ambulance.

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaaaannndd now Jace is in the picture. :) <strong>

**So it might take me (cough) a little while longer than a week to update just becuase finals are coming up pretty soon so I gotta shove my nose into some textbooks. But I promise I'll update like mad once I'm done them! **

**Thanks again for reading and reviews are always appreciated! :)**

**See you here soon!**


	6. Kindness and Promiscuity

**Oh gosh, so I'm finally back from the dead :P It's been so long since I've uploaded but I'm already working on the next chapter so it should be updated pretty soon. This would have been up yesterday but for some reason my 'doc manager' wasn't working. I uplaoded the chapter but then when I clicked on it to edit and add the author notes nothing would come up. It was doing that for all the other stories in my doc manager. Does this happen a lot? Anyways, this one's another long one, hopefully it'll make up for the month of no updates. **

**Thanks again for all of those who are reading, following, favoriting and reviewing; you guys are great!**

**Disclaimer: S'all Clare's :)**

* * *

><p><em>POUND. POUND. POUND.<em>

_Pain. Worry. Confusion._

_POUND. POUND. POUND._

_Fear. Pain. Heartache._

_POUND. POUND. POUND._

_Pain. Pain. Pain._

Magnus moaned as he leaned forward on the cot and squeezed his head between both his hands. Maybe if he squeezed hard enough there wouldn't be any space left for the feels. Maybe if he squeezed hard enough this incessant throbbing would go away. Maybe if he squeezed hard enough the whole bloody world would just disappear and leave him the hell alone.

_POUND. POUND. POUND._

Magnus scowled out a breath and looked at the bunk bed that was set up above his head. He half wished one of the legs would just give out and send he whole thing tumbling onto him. Maybe then, in an unconscious state, he'd find relief.

_All in all, it's adding up to be a pretty fan-friggin'-tastic day._

Even as he thought that he felt guilty and ashamed of himself for being so selfish. He thought of all those children just outside the door in the emergency room who had it way worse than having a supernatural-ability-induced headache. It was the emergency room full of injured kids he was feeling and also the cause of his headache.

A school bus full of fourth graders was on its way to a field trip to a farm in the country when the bus started to slide on the ice and the bus tipped and rolled once to land in the deep county road ditch. All the injured children were brought to the hospital and their emotions stabbed at his brain. It was always louder with the kids, as if their emotions passed through a megaphone before hitting Magnus.

He already had a headache to begin with but upon the arrival of the kids the chaos of all their feels intensified everything to the point where it felt like someone was repeatedly hitting his head with a mallet. Magnus had slipped into the dark and empty on-call room when the light of the hospital was making him feel like his eyeballs were being stabbed with a million toothpicks.

That's where he sat right then, trying to breathe through the pain; he wasn't even sure whose pain he was feeling, the headache pain and the pain from the feels flowed together like raindrops sharing the same track down the glass.

He was skirting his duties, he knew that. He should have been circulating in the ER, trying like all the other hospital staff, to create a certain order from the disarray: reuniting parents with children, answering questions and placating those who were worried. Tessa had texted him so many times already, asking for his help, asking where he was, but he didn't reply back. What would he say? That he was hiding in the dark like some little coward because he was being harassed by other people's emotions and that he felt like his head would just pop off and roll away at any given moment?

_Yeah, I bet that would be just the reply she's looking for. I wouldn't be Magnus Bane the psychiatrist from the residency program, I would be Magnus Bane the loon she once had to mentor who thought he could hear emotions._

Just as he was groaning from the thought the door cracked open and a sliver of light burst free from the hallway and invaded the room. The door opened wider and the sudden light made him wince in pain as the toothpicks resumed acupuncturing his eyes.

Magnus squinted, allowing only enough light to make out who was standing in the doorway.

Tessa took in the way that Magnus was peering at her and his curled forward position and took a step into the room and closed the door quietly behind her. She stood there in the dark for a moment, letting her eyes acclimate to the darkness before she walked silently over to the cot Magnus was sitting on and sat down beside him. She shifted her body so she was facing him.

'Magnus," she whispered, "what are you doing here?"

Magnus thanked his lucky stars that she decided to whisper and not talk in a normal voice, though by now any other resident psychiatrist would have been yelling at him for his disappearing act.

"Oh you know," Magnus whispered back, trying to fit in as much nonchalance as possible, "hunting for pixies and dust bunnies." The hitch in his breath that leaked through near the end of his statement vanquished any hopes of appearing at ease.

Magnus felt Tessa lean in closer and add a fresh dose of concern and kindness to the soup of feels that was already bubbling inside of him.

_Or maybe it's a feel from one of the people passing by in the hallway. Who knows?_

Everything was running together, confusing him and making his head hurt even more.

"What's wrong," she asked in a soft whisper, somehow understanding that a whisper was all he could handle "I've been trying to reach you for a while now. I was starting to get worried when you didn't reply." Magnus didn't need light to know that her eyebrows were slightly raised from concern and that she was regarding him with her big, gray, always patient eyes. She was one of those people who found joy in erasing other people's hurt and she did so every chance she got. He felt that from her every day. She was one of the good ones.

Magnus sighed. "I'm sorry, I know how busy and crazy things are out there and I got your texts, I just, I couldn't reply." Bent over as he was, with his elbows resting on his knees, he looked at the ground and tried to separate each individual tile in the dark. Tessa shifted closer to him, as if by just being near him she could piece together what he wasn't saying.

"Why couldn't you reply," she asked in a murmur.

Magnus took in a breath to try and steady his thoughts and told her the truth, or part of it anyway. "I feel like a whole team of players are using my head as a basketball – a basketball that might relieve his stomach of its contents if he sees any sort of light."

There was a shot of sympathy that must have come from Tessa. 'Oh Magnus," she whispered understandingly, rubbing slow, soothing circles on his back. Magnus was once again taken aback by her kindness; had it been any other psychiatrist, they would have been shouting at him to toughen up and dragging him out of the room by his ear. He realized, for probably the millionth time, how lucky he was to have gotten Dr. Gray as his attending psychiatrist.

"Go home, there's no point in you torturing yourself here with all this noise."

_Haha, if she only knew how spot on she is about the 'noise.'_

He would have liked nothing better than to go home, glue the blinds shut and curl up in the warmth and silence of his bed, but he couldn't leave.

"I can't," Magnus replied. "If Camille sees me leave before my shift is done she's going to kick me out of the residency program and we both know she's got eyes everywhere." Camille was the chief at the hospital and when someone looks the way she does it's easy to sweet-talk information out of any man. Sweet-talk wasn't the only thing she did; let's just say that almost every male hospital worker would flush a little or puff out his chest at the mention of her name.

Tessa patted his back. "You just let me deal with Her Highness." Magnus was surprised at the unfamiliar cold steel in her voice and the stab of anger. Even still, this was like pitting a tiny, fluffy, innocent cat against a vicious, loud and hunger-crazy bear.

Magnus turned his head and looked at where he believed Tessa's head would be. "I don't want you to get in trouble with her because of me, we both know what she's capable of when she's in one of her moods." What he didn't say out loud was that she was _always _in a mood. Since he's started working at the hospital seven months ago he's seen a ridiculous amount of people – good, hardworking people – get fired by Camille. If someone didn't do her bidding they'd be cleaning out their lockers by the next morning. No one could complain to those higher up on the food chain either because Camille managed to collect some sort of dirt on everyone. Dirt that would look particularly unfavourable under the light.

"Just let her try," she said in that same surprisingly cold manner, "I welcome the opportunity to put her in her place. I see what she does – everyone does – she shouldn't be able to get away with it. Do you know she even tried to pressure Dr. Car–, well never mind that," she sighed out her irritation and her voice returned to being the same kind voice she usually used. "Just go home and feel better by next shift, which is not tomorrow but the day after tomorrow, okay?"

Magnus wasn't surprised that he found yet another person that disliked Camille but the fact that it was Tessa that held so much venom towards her made him raise an eyebrow, you know, metaphorically speaking. He wondered what Camille had done to Tessa to garner the wrath of one so gentle and helping. It probably had something to do with the ER doctor Dr. Carstairs and whatever she had stopped herself from venting out. Anyone who spent two minutes in their company knew that they were sweet on each other and if Camille had made advances on Jem then no wonder Tessa was up in arms. Hell, he'd stand right beside Tessa if she decided to go head to head with Camille.

But not today. Right now he just wanted to make it home in one piece and lock the whole ruddy world away.

He stood up and squeezed his eyes together in protest when the drumbeat started up again at full force in his head. Tessa also stood up and put a sympathetic hand on his arm.

"Thanks Tessa. Honestly you're probably the kindest person I've had the honour of knowing, much too kind to be working under someone like Camille." He paused and wasn't sure if he should continue, but then he thought if the situation were reversed he'd like it if she said it to him. "You shouldn't worry about Dr. Carstairs, any fool can tell that he's only got eyes for you." At that Magnus felt Tessa's embarrassment but also her giddy happiness and her gratefulness for him saying that.

"Go home, Magnus," she whispered with an undisguisable smile in her voice.

Magnus made a beeline for the office, grabbed his bag and left the hospital while trying to avoid as many people as he could. When he stepped outside he almost cried out at the brightness, automatic tears blurring his vision but doing nothing to dilute the pain. He cursed himself because he hadn't packed his sunglasses into his workbag. His only saving grace was that the closer he got to the bus stop the more the feels from the ER faded and the more relief he found, though the throbbing headache and the subsequent nausea didn't fade in the least. As Magnus sat on the vacant bench in the bus stop he was thankful that it was only 1:00 so rush hour traffic hadn't started up yet. Less people on the bus meant less feels which at the moment was a very welcomed thing indeed.

After about 15 minutes, which Magnus spent fantasizing and dreaming about his comfortable bed and his plush pillow, the bus arrived and Magnus got on. His previous guesstimation had proven correct – the bus was almost empty. He chose a seat closer to the front and sat beside the window. The driver vehemently stepped onto the gas and the bus lurched forward. The bus wasn't the only thing that did. At the sudden and jerky movement Magnus's stomach protested so loud that for one panicky moment he was sure that he was going to throw up all over the seat in front of him. It was only sheer will and his mortification at such a public embarrassment that kept his breakfast in its proper resting place.

He tried to convince himself that the lurch was a one-time thing but as the bus blended in with the other vehicles he soon discovered that that was just the way the driver drove. Of course.

So as the driver alternated between pushing on the gas, making them fly backwards and pressing on the brakes, making them crash forward, Magnus focused on anything but this incessant rocking motion. He tried bracing himself on the seat that was in front of him but that proved to be futile. He even contemplated getting off and catching the next bus but he wasn't sure how long it would be until the next bus and he just really wanted to get home.

He took deep breaths, focused on his breathing and tried to ignore the headache and the nausea. With his long inhale he focused on his ribs expanding and with his drawn-out exhale he pictured himself blowing all the nausea out in his breath. Still focusing on his breathing he closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against the window. The cool glass felt fabulous against his hot, sweaty face. With the next inhale he pictured himself drawing in some of this coolness into his lungs and with the exhale he imagined the fog that his breath was creating on the window.

Magnus got into a rhythm and was barely managing to hold it together. He was dancing on the side of a cliff on his toes. Every time the driver violently braked for a stop he could feel himself sliding away from the fine balance. He was counting down the stops.

_Seventeen more stops. But oh God, _Magnus wept internally at a realization, _there was a road they had to go down that had at least 12 traffic lights. Ah well, maybe I can make a quick enough dash to the garbage can beside the driver if it comes to that._

With all the lamenting and the breathing he didn't notice Alec get on.

He didn't notice Alec turn to start walking up the aisle and startle a bit at the surprise of seeing Magnus on the bus so early in the afternoon.

He didn't notice Alec's gaze raking over his face and Alec's face pinching in concern at Magnus's pale appearance.

He didn't notice Alec wonder why Magnus was doing what can only be called yoga breathing.

He definitely didn't notice when Alec sat down in the seat next to him and took in his sweaty face and tightly shut eyes.

If he would have paid attention to the feels around him instead of his breathing he would have felt the tiny bloom of unease and tenderness, but he didn't notice.

He noticed when Alec placed a hesitant hand on his arm making him jump in surprise and making Alec quickly withdraw his hand.

"Magnus, are you – are you feeling okay?"

* * *

><p><strong>I never liked Camille so don't expect to see her being portrayed as a 'good guy' in this fic. She was always so coniving and scheming. Okay, so MagnusAlec moments coming up for at least the next two chapters! I'm pretty excited for the next chapter, something pretty big's gonna happen!**

**Thanks again you guys, see you back here pretty soon! :D**


	7. Green and Red Lights

**Hi! Merry belated Christmas and happy holdiays! I hope it's going well for all of you! So I wasn't joking when I said that the update was going to be soon. :) I initially thought that this chapter was going to be shorter but somehow all the recent chapters have ended up being a little longer than anticipated. Hopefully there are no objections :D **

**Thanks again to all of those who are reading and sending in their reviews; they make my day! As those of you who've reviewed know, I usually send you a PM but for the Guest who's been reviewing, I can't exactly send you anything so I just wanted to take this time to thank you for your reviews (the two Guest reviews look similar so I'm kinda betting on the fact that it's the same person.) :)**

**Disclaimer: Alas, to my great dispair, Clare owns all the characters :(**

* * *

><p>He noticed when Alec placed a hesitant hand on his arm making him jump in surprise and making Alec quickly withdraw his hand.<p>

"Magnus, are you – are you feeling okay?"

Magnus laughed mentally. _Of course I run into him on the day I feel like something ran me over, when he has a 97% chance of being covered in my breakfast. Of course._ He sighed mentally._ I never can get a break. _

They saw each other on the bus almost every day – well the days that both of them were working. They talked about mundane things but when Magnus tried to steer the conversation towards something more personal Alec would either clam up or evade the question. He was a champion evader and sometimes Magnus wouldn't even notice when Alec turned the questioning back on him. _The sneaky little bugger._ They'd been doing this dance for many weeks now and Magnus had yet to learn the steps, but he enjoyed every twist and turn and he began to learn when he was stepping on Alec's toes. He learned that when he acted extra charming Alec would lock up tight, like a house being boarded up before a hurricane.

Magnus looked at Alec through squinted eyes. "I'm just peachy," he said and tried for a light tone but the pain tightened his voice and it ended up sounding more like a raspy zombie than anything. _Oh yeah, this is real attractive..._ _real convincing material._

He felt the pity from Alec worm into him and settle behind his ribcage, pulling them together and tightening his lungs. He pushed and kicked against the feel. He didn't need or want pity from Alec; he could take care of himself just fine. Magnus learned when he was young, after the death of his parents, that pity did not mean the person cared. It only meant that the person felt bad for a passing moment but at the same time a tiny part of them was glad that they weren't in the same position. It was an ugly emotion to feel.

Magnus was so caught up in his thoughts that for a moment he didn't feel the new, stronger feel that had slowly seeped into his heart and entered his bloodstream to circulate throughout his body. A calm that didn't originate from him smoothed out his thoughts, folded the frustrated ones neatly and put them away. It was then that he noticed the warmth that was spreading through his body starting from his core. It was like warm liquid gold; precious and rare. The calm and the warmth bore the signature of one emotion: gentleness. Magnus looked at Alec in questioning awe.

"Um, are you sure," Alec asked oblivious to Magnus's look, "because you look more like um a green pea."

Magnus stared at Alec in wonder as he focused on the warmth that was spreading through his body. It felt like someone was hugging him for the inside out and for a moment it even seemed to lessen the throbbing in his head. It was so unexpected and just felt so _damn_ good that to his horror he felt close to tears. _Ah God, _the rational side of his mind fretted, _all we need is for you to start blubbering like a fool to round out the day._

Alec of course noticed that Magnus's gaze was locked on him but when he looked closer Magnus's eyes held a faraway, unseeing look; like he was blocking out all his other senses to hear a faint noise. It brought back a sense of déjà vu and reminded him of their first meet on the bus. _Really, we're back to his again, _Alec thought with a resigned sigh.

"What," Alec asked after Magnus still hadn't said anything. _Maybe he really doesn't like peas, _a distant voice thought but Alec highly doubted that Magnus's trance was due to vegetables.

Just then the bus made a sharp stop that caused Magnus to fly forward and put out a hand to brace himself. He closed his eyes and let out a low groan as his other hand encircled his middle and he took a couple deep breaths. Alec's hands fluttered around Magnus, unsure of what to do and how to help.

_Oh no, he does look like he's going to throw up any second, _Alec thought in dawning horror.

_Aw hell, I think I'm gonna throw up, _Magnus thought alarmed. _No, no, no, NO, _Magnus thought determinedly, _I am NOT going to throw up all over the guy I've had a crush on for more than a month now. _Magnus focused on finding some calm and breathed a little more. He heard Alec ask,

"What's going on?"

He told him the truth – well almost all the truth. He didn't see any reason to tell Alec that he's a crazy eavesdropper that can hear and feel other's emotions.

Alec was sympathetic. "So that's why you're on the bus so early, because Tessa sent you home."

"Yeah, although she's probably going to be wishing she did otherwise when Camille finds out," Magnus mumbled.

"Camille," Alec asked.

"Oh she's just your usual power hungry, vengeful, appears-to-be-a-goddess-but-is-really-the-devil-in-disguise chief of the hospital who's slept with three quarters of our male staff and blackmailed the other quarter for _not_ doing the deed with her."

Magnus felt Alec's disbelief at the description. "Well, she sounds...errr...interesting."

Magnus had to chuckle slightly at that," Somehow 'interesting' doesn't quite cover it."

A moment passed in amicable silence while the bus turned a corner and they swayed with the movement.

"So...um," Alec started reluctantly," what quarter do you belong to?"

"Quarter?" Magnus turned and looked over at Alec in confusion.

"You know," Alec said, clearly uncomfortable and looking like he regretted bringing it up in the first place, "you said one quarter of the staff was being blackmailed while the other three quarters were..." He raised his eyebrows to fill in the blank.

_Oh._

Under other circumstances Magnus would have let out a hearty laugh. A snicker peeked through when he answered, "I guess I'm excluded from the count because she knows her womanly wiles won't work on me."

Magnus could have sworn that the corners of Alec's mouth twitched upwards for a fraction of a second and his suspicions were confirmed when he felt a wave of satisfaction.

_So he was fishing for clues, _Magnus thought.

Whatever response Magnus was going to say was swallowed when the driver sped up at the yellow light, thinking he could make it through, and then stomped on the breaks when the light turned red.

_I miss Steven,_ Magnus thought for not the first time that ride while Alec and he got thrown into the seat in front of them. His stomach gave a violent spasm and he felt the burn of the stomach acid in his throat.

"You're okay," Alec murmured, "you're almost home."

What Alec failed to voice was that they'd just turned onto the Street Made by the Devil, aka the road with the million stop lights. Magnus braced himself for it and said, "Alec could you just talk, I wouldn't mind a little distraction right now. What were you doing in town today?"

Alec didn't expect the questioning but he could hardly refuse. "Oh um, I haven't really done any exploring since I've moved here. I finally unpacked all the boxes and I figured it was time to see what's in the area."

Magnus winced as they stopped at the next light and Alec quickly carried on. "My sister is on her break from school and she said she wants to come up and visit me, see my new house and all. I went into town to find some extra towels and sheets and stuff."

"What school does your sister go to," Magnus asked painfully

"Oh Isabelle, she goes to the New York School of Interior Design. You could never tell by the way her room looked when we were growing up that she has an eye for that sort of thing," Alec said with amusement.

Even in his state, Magnus could feel the strong love that Alec held for his sister. He peeked over at Alec and saw the fondness in his face when he spoke of his sister. Magnus's eyes swept the floor of the bus around Alec's feet. "Did you find what you were looking for; I can't help but notice your lack of bags."

They breezed through two more lights.

"Ah... umm, well," a pang of embarrassment nudged against Magnus, "I never actually made it to any store. There was construction around the shopping district and the bus took a detour and let us out beyond the construction zone. I...ahh...I asked the driver what bus I should take to get close to the store and he said the 15."

Magnus frowned slightly to himself. He didn't remember the 15 going anywhere near the mall.

"So I got on the 15 and...ummm...rode it until the last stop but it never went by the shops. The bus stayed on a one-way street so I couldn't even get off because I would have been stranded on the world's longest one-way street." Alec laughed a little at himself.

Magnus's heart smiled. _I love those who can laugh at their own bumbles._

Alec continued, oblivious to Magnus's internal delight. "I stayed on the bus and when I spoke with the driver he said that if I stayed on the bus he would be heading back to the same stop where he picked me up from almost an hour ago. Long story short, two hours later I got back to where I started from and now I know that I was supposed to have taken the 50, not the 15."

The bus stopped at the next light and Magnus waited for his stomach to settle some before he asked, "So in the end you didn't go to the mall?"

"No, I had enough adventure for one day. With my luck the 50 would have broken down and I would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere. I'll probably try again tomorrow."

Magnus thought about it. _I have a day off tomorrow too..._

"Why don't we go together? I can show you around the city a little and I know where all the great deals are. I wouldn't want you to get stuck on another one-way street, there are quite a few downtown you know," he said in the most teasing tone he could muster.

Alec was surprised at the offer. _Why would he want to spend his day off playing tour guide to a random guy from the bus? 'Maybe he likes you,' _one side of Alec thought, '_Oh yeah, sure,'_ the other side of Alec snorted sarcastically. _He probably just feels bad for me and wants to make sure the poor fool doesn't get lost again, _Alec thought logically.

Magnus took in the way that Alec drew the shutters around him and withdrew on himself. Magnus tried to match it up with the mix of feels he was feeling: surprise, delight and the resignation that Alec settled on. There were enough feels mixed into the brief moment that it made Magnus's head throb in protest once more.

_Why can't he allow himself to feel what he wants to feel? Why is he at war with himself? _

You'd think that being able to feel other people's emotions would make people's actions crystal clear but Magnus found that it usually just resulted in more questions.

"You don't have to," Alec replied diplomatically. "It's your day off, you don't want to be dragged from store to store looking for fluffy towels. I'm sure I'll get on the right bus tomorrow." Alec forced a smile.

Magnus dealt with the pain of the sudden light and opened his eyes fully to look at Alec. He took in the determined set of Alec's eyebrows, the way his eyes shone blue and true, the honest set of his nose and the hidden thoughts and desires the shape of his mouth prevented him from speaking.

"What if I want to," Magnus whispered.

Alec started. It both infuriated and saddened Magnus to see that Alec –so honest, caring and loyal– would be surprised that someone wanted to willingly spend time with him. Magnus wanted to hunt down the person who made Alec think like that –because make no mistake, this was someone's doing– and give him a good punch and a kick to boot.

Alec was looking at Magnus suspiciously but Magnus could feel tendrils of delight and excitement that Alec fought to hide from himself.

"Well, if you're sure..."Alec said hesitantly, giving Magnus time to withdraw his offer.

The bus sped through a yellow light and careened around a corner to turn onto another street. When they settled and the threat from his stomach lessened Magnus stuck out his hand, "Give me your phone."

Alec pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it over to Magnus. Magnus programmed his name and number into Alec's contacts and sent himself a text from Alec's phone.

"There," Magnus said and gave Alec his phone back, "now we have each other's number."

"Oh okay," Alec said, "but what if you don't feel better by tomorrow?"

"I think I just need to go home, have good sleep and this'll pass." Magnus was glad that they were almost at his stop. His fuzzy, purple duck pyjamas awaited him along with a nice hot mug of fennel tea that had his name all over it.

He once again shook hands with concern as Alec looked at him. "Are you sure you're going to be okay by yourself –I mean _if _you're by yourself, not that I'm implying anything by saying that you're by yourself– _Shut up Alec, _his mind screamed at him.

Magnus interrupted Alec, "I'm not alone."

Alec visibly deflated.

_Well of course he's not, what did you think, _Alec's mind asked sneeringly.

"I have a cat," Magnus said as the bus stopped at his stop. Alec perked up. "His name's Chairman Meow and he's not a big fan of the human species in general, but he likes me...I wonder what that means."

Alec moved to stand in the aisle to let Magnus out. Magnus stood up, grabbed his bag and paused when he was standing beside Alec.

"Thank you for the offer though," he said softly.

Alec blushed but he didn't look away. Magnus took that to be progress. Who would have guessed that the ingredients to make Alec talk were nausea, a horrible driver and a terribly designed street?

"I'll see you tomorrow." Alec nodded. Magnus sent him a weak, nauseous smile before he turned and walked to the front to get off.

Alec sat back down and tried to sort through the whirlwind that had happened in the span of half an hour.

_Did Magnus just ask me out on a date? Could it even be called a date? They were going to buy bed sheets and pillow cases; nothing terribly romantic._

Even so, Alec sat on the stained, blue bus seat as the bus lurched forward –_By the Angel, this bus driver truly is terrible –_ and he couldn't erase the excited anticipation for tomorrow.

* * *

><p><strong>Ahhhh, so I wasn't kidding in the author's note of the last chapter when I said something big was going to happen. I don't care what Alec thinks, I taking this as a date...their first date! Eeeeks! :)<strong>

**Hope you guys have a really good holiday and if I don't update before then Happy New Year if you're celebrating it! :-) I'd love it if you drop me a review to tell me what you think so far!**

**Have a good week, wherever in the world you might be and whatever you're celebrating! :)**


	8. Cotton and Cows

**Hi there! Happy New Years! I hope you guys had a good New Year's Eve. I rang in the New Year by finishing a book called In the After Light by Alexandra Bracken. It was the last book in the trilogy and wow was it ever good. If you like dystopians then this is definitely a book that I'd suggest. **

**Anyways, back to Alec and Magnus. Thanks again to all of you who've read and reviewed. I love seeing what you guys think. Hopefully you'll like the chapter. Oh just a little random side note, I had a good giggle when I thought of the chapter name. I think one of my favorite parts is coming up with the chapter titles, haha. **

**Disclaimer: Clare owns it all **

* * *

><p>Magnus woke up slowly and snuggled deeper into his soft comforter, relishing the warm feeling and knowing that he didn't have to hear his alarm that morning. With his eyes still closed, he let his mind wake up and only when he was a little more conscious did he realize that he felt good, really good. His headache was gone and so was his nausea. He felt refreshed and rested. He opened his eyes and took in the darkness of his room and when he turned his head to look out his window he saw that it was charcoal outside.<p>

He looked at his alarm clock out of curiosity and he wasn't too surprised when he saw that it was only 3:04 am. He crossed his arm and rested the back of his wrist on his forehead and looked at the ceiling, wide awake.

When he'd stumbled home yesterday after getting off the bus he'd dropped his bag in the entrance beside the shoes he'd kicked off and made a beeline for the medicine cabinet. After knocking back 2 Advils and a good mouthful of Pepto Bismol he stripped off his work clothes, put on his fuzzy duck pyjamas and crawled into the comforts of his bed; completely dead to the world.

Magnus did the mental math. He remembered getting off the bus at 2:30 because the time was displayed beside the name of the stop and it was now 3:00. He'd gotten twelve hours of sleep.

_Twelve hours?! Well no wonder I woke up._ _I don't think I've ever slept for twelve hours straight._

He soon became aware of another fact that proved that he'd been asleep for half a day. He got out of bed and, not wanting to turn on the light, he patted and danced (when the need became urgent) his way through the hall to the bathroom.

Sighing in relief, he made his way back to his room and only then did he see that his cell phone was blinking blue. He grabbed it off his bedside and sat back down on his bed, leaning against the headboard. It was a text from Alec.

_**Hi Magnus, I just wanted to see how you're feeling. Also it's ok if you're not feeling up to going shopping tomorrow.**_

Magnus shook his head slightly with a small smile on his face. _He's still trying to give me an out. As if I'd take it, it only took me a whole _month_ to get him semi-comfortable in talking with me, _Magnus thought sarcastically.

Magnus started to text back an answer but then paused before he pressed send. It was 3 in the morning; he didn't want to be the jerk that woke someone up at such an insane hour. In the end Magnus figured that it wasn't as if Alec had glued himself to his phone. He hit send.

* * *

><p>Alec was roused by a sound that his drowsy brain couldn't place. He cracked open an eye and saw that there was some artificial light coming from the chest at the foot of his bed. With a sleepy moan of protest he fumbled to the end of the bed on his stomach and with his head still buried in the covers he patted the top of the chest blindly. He stopped when his hand connected with his phone.<p>

_Who the _hell _is texting me at this hour? I swear if it's Jace texting to ask me what tattoo he should get again I'm going to tell him to get a teddy bear tattooed to his butt._

Grumbling and squinting against the brightness of his phone he saw that the text wasn't from Jace but from Magnus. His sleepiness vanished and he found himself hesitating to open the text. He didn't want to see the excuse that was going to be glaring mockingly up at him. Alec had learned long ago that the best thing to do was not plan ahead. Tell yourself that something was going to be bad and then surprise yourself when it turns out to be not as bad you assumed. He didn't allow himself to think how good something could be because wouldn't it just hurt more in the end?

But yesterday, on the bus, for one fraction of a moment –for one glorious daydream– he'd broken his own rules. He'd allowed himself to hope.

With a steadying breath he clicked on Magnus's text.

_**I'm feeling better than ever, I guess sleeping away half a day does that to a man. I'll see you later today, just text me when you're heading out and I'll meet you at the bus stop on the edge of the construction zone. Oh and P.S., just for future reference, you can't get rid of me that easily. :-)**_

Alec was grinning when he put the phone on his nightstand and a ghost of a smile was still playing upon his lips as he fell back asleep.

* * *

><p>Magnus pushed himself off the side of the bus terminal when he saw Alec speed walking towards him.<p>

"Sorry," Alec said breathlessly as he reached Magnus, "I hope you weren't waiting long." He sucked in a big breath.

"What, did you get on the wrong bus again," Magnus asked teasingly.

"No," Alec exhaled a laugh on his breath, "nothing that exciting. I just couldn't find my wallet."

"Well the next 50 is going to be coming in about five minutes so you're just in time."

They turned and walked slowly towards the bus terminal that the bus would be stopping at.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Alec said to break the silence. Magnus was perfectly at ease but he could feel the anxiety that was rubbing elbows with Alec. "You didn't look too good yesterday; you kind of matched your emerald scarf actually."

Magnus laughed, hoping that if he showed that he was comfortable Alec would follow suit. "I think it was sheer will power alone that got me home. That bus driver..."

"Was something special," Alec finished without thinking.

They both laughed at that and Magnus could feel the anxiety unfurling its clasp on Alec and start to dissipate. Magnus noticed that as Alec relaxed everything about him became more fluid – his words, his movements, even his expressions. Alec was still very conscious and careful with what he said but it was as if there were fewer checkpoints that his ideas had to pass through before they could be said out loud.

Even as Magnus happily took notice of the slight changes Alec in the meantime tried to work through his surprise. Alec knew himself and he knew that his awkwardness made him seem aloof and uncaring but the few people who were closest to him knew this wasn't true. With that handful of people Alec didn't have to sensor things, not too much at least. He didn't have to be constantly thinking – thinking about what he said, what he should say, how people would react, what people wanted to hear and what people were thinking about him. He was constantly thinking and it was so tiring. Some days it seemed like Isabelle was the only one who really understood all the thinking that went on inside him; she understood without him ever having said anything.

With Magnus right then, he felt as if he understood too. There were so many times on the bus when he would look over and catch Magnus looking at him with a look on his face, as if he was delving beyond the epithelium, past the muscles, through the bone and into his soul. Sometimes it even felt as if he knew what he was thinking – what he wasn't saying. There was no way to describe it and it made Alec cringe to think that his face was so obvious that Magnus could effortlessly read him. Somehow Magnus just seemed to know and some days, even though they barely exchanged a couple words, it was like they traded volumes. Magnus would look over at him with that look and his eyes would reassuringly say, "I know, it's okay if you can't say it. I understand." When Alec would see this look it unnerved him at first but then afterwards it was as if he was replying back to Magnus, saying, "Really? Do you really understand?" Alec knew it was all just foolish thinking, probably as a result of too much time spent living inside his head, but it calmed him.

For some reason this witty, outgoing _handsome_ man who was willing to spend is free day roaming the city looking for bed spreads and hand towels understood him and that calmed him.

"Alec."

"Alec."

"Alec?"

Alec was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his name.

Magnus was looking at him questioningly with his mouth pulled into a half smile. "Can you sleep with your eyes open or what? You'll have to teach me that trick sometime."

Alec shook his head bashfully. "Sorry, I guess my mind wandered away from me. Were you saying something?"

"Well right before you zonked out I was asking when your sister was going to arrive."

"Oh, she said that she was going to take a plane to Denver International and be here on the 15th. I'm meeting her at the airport at 2:30 and we'll take a cab back to my place. It's lucky that I have that day off," Alec added as an afterthought.

"Six days away, you must be so excited. When did you see her last," Magus asked.

"Right before I moved away. I haven't seen her since but we talk and Skype a lot. She's kind of like a mother hen, except for that fact that her cooking could probably kill an entire nation," Alec said. Magnus started to laugh at the description. "I'm not joking," Alec said with wide eyes and Magnus laughed even harder at the horrified look on Alec's face.

"When we were little we played house and she was the 'mom' so she made us a soup for dinner. When she gave us our plates she was so proud of herself but we took one look at this _thing_ she made and almost ran away. There were ragged chunks of raw potato, entire tomatoes bobbing around and the odd baby carrot. To top it all off she added a huge scoop of cucumber relish into the middle and squirted ketchup on top of the relish. We tried to feed it to the cat but even the cat wouldn't eat it." Alec laughed along with Magnus and felt a spark of self-satisfaction that he was making Magnus laugh.

Magnus was wiping his tears of laughter away when he offhandedly asked, "Do you have any other siblings?"

Magnus was completely unprepared for what happened. It felt as though someone reached into his chest, grabbed his lungs and squeezed as hard as they could. All the breath whooshed out of him and he was left like that, unable to breath. This grief that punched and clawed at him was raw and open and it reminded Magnus of the undercurrent of sadness that he had picked up on in Alec's default the first time they met. Where the sadness in Alec's default was a drop of water, the grief that tore at both of them now was an ocean – an ocean that came crashing down again and again, relentlessly and uncaringly.

Magnus put an instinctive hand to his throat as he struggled to breathe. The motion must have caught Alec's attention because the sadness lessened its grip on them both and confusion wormed its way in. Magnus inhaled like he's just finished a sprint, like he'd just surfaced after diving into the water, like he'd just heard some terrible news.

Magnus looked at Alec in shock. He felt the mosaic of emotions that equated to grief at the hospital every day, that didn't mean he became immune to it. Alec's grief felt different to him and it wasn't just because he knew Alec. The percentages for each emotion that made up grief were startlingly different. For most people grief was comprised mostly of sadness and loss with anger, frustration and denial acting as secondary emotions.

For Alec, those emotions were all there but it wasn't sadness that dominated, it was guilt.

"Are you okay," Alec asked, looking at Magnus with confusion that was laced with just a trace of suspicion.

"Yeah, I," Magnus patted just below his rib cage for show, "I felt a hiccup coming on but I was trying to suppress it. I guess it comes out weird if you do that." He forced himself to smile what he hoped looked like an embarrassed smile. Alec looked at him skeptically.

Magnus saw the 50 bus pull up behind Alec and he pointed to it with his chin. Alec turned and they both walked towards the bus, each looking for their bus passes. Magnus didn't miss the sidelong glances Alec was shooting him.

As they boarded the bus and took their seats, Alec didn't bring up Magnus's weird reaction and Magnus didn't point out that he'd left the question unanswered.

* * *

><p>"Magnus," Alec said exasperatedly, "this one is fine." Alec was holding up a package that held a matching ensemble of pillowcases, a bed sheet and a duvet cover.<p>

"No, it's not. It's synthetic, not cotton. You want to buy cotton so it'll be durable and the colours won't fade in the wash. You don't want to do this again a couple months from now," Magnus explained.

"No, definitely not," Alec said, only half teasingly.

Magnus sent him a look over his shoulder as he walked towards another display shelf. "I'll try not to take that personally," he said with his eyes crinkling into a smile, even while the smile hadn't travelled as far down as his mouth.

"No, it's not that," Alec followed hurriedly. "It's just shopping," Alec said, and to Magnus's amusement Alec did something that could only be described as a shudder of loathing. "You can never find what you're looking for and it takes hours just to find something that decently resembles what you need. I just really, _really_ don't like to shop."

"I'm starting to see that," Magnus teased while looking through various beddings.

They'd been shopping for what seemed like a week, going from one store to the next, comparing this fabric to another, looking at this colour versus that colour. Alec was glad that Magnus had come because it was obvious that he had way more expertise when it came to this sort of thing. They'd bought pale Easter coloured hand, face and full size towels. "So they don't stain other things in the wash," Magnus had explained when Alec asked about the colours.

Next they bought cleaning supplies so that Alec could give the house a good scrub down before Isabelle arrived. Then they went and bought some kitchen items so that he'd have more than just one old, dented frying pan and a pot without a handle lying around. They went about and bought the odd things that Alec needed and the bed sheets where the only things left to be crossed off the list.

Magnus finally settled on bed spreads that were 100% cotton and had a pale striped pattern running along them. With Alec's approval (he would have approved just about anything by that point), they headed towards the checkout line with their hands full of bags.

Alec laughed softly to himself as they stood in line. _The contrast between Magnus and me is almost comical. He looks like he's invigorated by all the stores and people whereas I probably look like I'm ready to have a nap – and a meal. _Alec couldn't ignore his hunger anymore. Even the wasabi peas they were selling at the checkout counter looked amazingly good.

After they paid for their things they stuffed themselves, and their million and two bags, onto the bus and as luck would have it they caught the second bus they had to take that would take them out of the city and to their homes. When they settled themselves in Alec looked out the window.

"I can't believe it's dark outside. I don't think I've ever spent that much time in the mall. I didn't even know that stores were open so long," Alec joked. He looked at Magnus apologetically. "I'm sorry that I got a little grumpy back there. There's a reason why Isabelle doesn't invite me to come when she goes shopping."

"I think you're cute when you're grumpy –like a devilishly handsome, scowling garden gnome."

Alec could feel his cheeks heating up. "You think I look like a garden gnome," he asked incredulously.

"Only when you're grumpy," Magnus replied jestingly. "Other times you just look devilishly handsome."

As Alec's blush darkened Magnus wondered if maybe he pushed it too far but he didn't feel any unease from Alec, only shyness and amusement.

A woman who'd just gotten on the bus passed by their seats and the smell from her take out container wafted over to them. The roasted garlic smell had Alec's mouth watering and Magnus's stomach let out a large rumble.

"God, I'm hungry," Magnus said while following the take out container longingly with his eyes.

"Me too," Alec agreed. They hadn't eaten lunch and it was already dinner time. Alec felt bad that he hadn't thought to ask Magnus if he wanted to stop and have a bite to eat in the food court at lunch time. He had an idea and launched into asking Magnus before he had enough time to talk himself out of it.

"Why don't you come over to my house and we'll have dinner," Alec suggested.

_I'm hungry, he's hungry, it's just food. You can eat dinner with friends, doesn't mean that it's a date just because you're having dinner. Even if he doesn't see this as a date, it's just a meal. It's not like I asked him to join me in singing the theme song to the Titanic,_ Alec tried to reason with himself. _But you want this to be a date, don't you,_ a sing-songy, all-knowing, annoying voice whispered in his mind.

While Alec was having his internal meltdown Magnus was delightedly surprised at Alec's offer. _I'm usually the one to initiate things – whether it be conversation or the date today. Though I'm not supposed to call it a date_, Magnus mentally chastised himself,_ because it would probably send Alec into an epic freak-out._

"That sounds wonderful," Magnus said, having no idea what a sedative effect those words had on Alec. "I'm so hungry I feel like I could eat a cow right about now."

* * *

><p><strong>Wahooooooo! Two-part date! Yay! :D<strong>


End file.
